Colourful Past

Shekhawat never tires of telling us of his childhood days – of the deprivation and hardships he had to face till a chance recruitment drive near his village landed him a job with Indian Navy and changed his life. We have heard him narrate those stories a hundred times.
But there is another aspect to Shekhawat’s past that he was to reveal for the first time this morning. Like any seaman, he has visited many foreign ports – from Bangkok and Pattaya to Muscat, Jakarta, Sydney, Singapore...

We are all ears as Shekhawat comes up with anecdotes from his colourful past

Much as the visits were in the line of duty he found himself exposed to the seamier side of a sailor’s life beyond imagination.
“From good food, drinks and other creature comforts, we were quite well off inside a ship,” he narrated. “We lacked nothing... except for one thing. Don’t forget we were young then and our wives were away while we sailed the high seas for days on end. So the moment we dropped anchor, all the men went berserk and abandoned the ship.”
Where did they go?
“At every port there is always a colony of exotic ladies of the night,” Shekhawat continued. “They catered only to shippies like us. We went to their quarters. They were out of this world. In peak winter when I had to wrap myself from head to toe in woolens, I found these girls in Australia wearing next to nothing. How do they withstand the cold, I still wonder.”
Shekhawat came up with many such anecdotes and concluded that Jakarta would rank as the “best port" in his opinion. Today though, he looks back at those indulgences as sinful. That is why, he says, he seeks the forgiveness of the gods in his daily prayers. “I pray 21 times to 11 gods every day, asking each of them to forgive me for my past sins,” he boasts.

Karun Sharma:
How can it be sin when two persons are happily engaged in an activity? It would be a sin if it is forced on anyone.